Consistent Calorie Counting May Be the Key to Weight Loss Success

Trending News: This Weight Loss Method Takes Just 15 Minutes a Day and Works, Study Finds

What are the techniques most commonly associated with effective weight loss? Yes, there are any number of diets you could try. (Keto or maybe intermittent fasting?) And exercise certainly plays a part in most weight loss regimens: cardio, HIIT, and lifting weights at the gym have all proven to be effective at torching calories. However, one of the most effective weight loss methods – or the most effective, according to some researchers and weight loss coaches – is way more boring: counting.

You might be groaning. Dietary self-monitoring is way out of fashion these days, partly because it’s perceived to be odious. Why mess around with a notepad or app counting calories when you could be burning them by spending that time in the gym or pounding the pavement?

Well, it turns out that good old-fashioned calorie counting is not only highly effective for weight loss, it also takes a lot less time than you’d anticipate. That’s the finding of new research that says by taking just 15 minutes out of your day, you can make tracking your calories an essential part of your weight loss strategy.

Perception Versus Reality

For the study published in the March issue of Obesity, researchers from the University of Vermont and the University of South Carolina examined the dietary self-monitoring habits of 142 people who signed up for an online weight loss program. All participants had to have a BMI between 25 and 50, be void of any health issues that cause weight gain, not be involved in other weight loss programs, and have regular access to the internet.

Over six weeks, participants met on the internet for a weekly group session with a trained dietician and logged what they were eating. The process left records on how much time everyone spent on logging their information and how often they signed in.

By the end of the six-month program, researchers discovered that the biggest losers – those who lost 10 percent of their body weight – were spending an average of 15 minutes per day self-monitoring their daily food intake.

“People hate it; they think it’s onerous and awful, but the question we had was: How much time does dietary self-monitoring really take?” Jean Harvey, lead author and chair of the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the University of Vermont said in a news release.

It turns out, not very much.

What’s the Frequency?

Drilling down, Harvey and her colleagues found that what really predicted weight loss success wasn’t the time spent monitoring. Those who would get right into the nitty gritty of the task and included more detail didn’t achieve better outcomes. Instead, it was the frequency of logins that was key. People who consistently self-monitored three times a day aced their weight loss goals.

“It seems to be the act of self-monitoring itself that makes the difference – not the time spent or the details included,” Harvey said.

She concluded that the most important outcome of this study is that it will help those seeking to lose weight to set simple behavioral targets. Because, as you may know, having the right expectations is important in any weight loss journey.

“We've been able to tell [people] that they should exercise 200 minutes per week,” Harvey said. “But when we asked them to write down all their foods, we could never say how long it would take. Now we can. … It’s highly effective, and it’s not as hard as people think.”